McMaster: Charlottesville car-ramming was ‘form of terrorism’

Lt. Gen H.R. McMaster, US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, condemned the car-ramming attack that took place yesterday in Charlottesville, Virginia. McMaster called it a “form of terrorism” that may have been motivated by “hatred and bigotry.”

US President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser Lt. Gen H.R. McMaster has commented on the car-ramming attack in Charlottesville, which claimed the life of a woman and injured 19 people. “Certainly I think we can confidently call it a form of terrorism,” he told NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday.

McMaster explained that any attack that targets civilians in order to spread fear is terrorism. “But what this is, what you see here, is you see someone who is a criminal who is committing a criminal act against fellow Americans — a criminal act that may have been motivated, and we’ll see what’s turned up in this investigation, by this hatred and bigotry, which I mentioned we have to extinguish in our nation,” he continued.

Charlottesville, yesterday Photo Credit: Reuters/Channel 2 News

Meanwhile, after Trump condemned the violence but did not specifically denounce the white supremacist rally, the White House released the following statement: “The President said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred and of course that includes white Supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups. He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together.”

After the car-ramming attack, police in Virginia arrested the suspected driver: 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. of Maumee, Ohio. A few hours after the attack, two Virginia State Police Department officers were killed in a helicopter crash near Charlottesville.